A. J. Hartley

Who is A. J. Hartley?

Andrew James Hartley is a British-born American novelist, who writes mystery/thrillers and fantasy adventures. He has a new series of children's/young adult fantasy adventures coming out in later 2011. He blogs regularly for the writers' site Magical Words and is a regular presenter at Thrillerfest and Dragon Con. His thrillers have been USA Today and New York Times bestsellers and his 5th novel, Will Power, was listed by Kirkus Reviews as one of the 15 best fantasy/scifi books of 2010. The first of three middle grades/young adult adventures, Darwen Arkwright and the Peregrine Pact, will be released from Razorbill in October 2011. In 2011 he co-authored with David Hewson a novelization of Shakespeare's Macbeth written specially for audio and released by Audible.com in June, narrated by Alan Cumming.

He was born in Preston, Lancashire. After his undergraduate degree he lived in Japan where he taught English for two years, travelling extensively throughout Asia. He then moved to the United States and got Masters and Doctoral degrees in English Literature from Boston University. He taught for nine years at the University of West Georgia and became the resident dramaturg for Georgia Shakespeare. At present he is the distinguished professor of Shakespeare in the Department of Theatre at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He is a theatre director and dramaturg, and is the editor of the performance journal Shakespeare Bulletin, published by Johns Hopkins University press. He is the director of the Shakespeare in Action Centre at UNC Charlotte. His third novel, What Time Devours, draws on his experiences as an academic and centers on a lost Shakespeare play called Love's Labour's Won.